"It exists in the northern part of Navarra a very curious type of farm house that reminds a lot the medieval towers of Baviera and Würtenberg. An enormous wooden superestructura raises on a solid vall of two storeys lifted made of manposteria, of generally square plant,. The stone built part contains stables, cellars and places for carriages and farm tools in the lower part and the room and the bedrooms on the floor. As for the other floors that are generally two, they only serve as barns. Big right feet laid on  the lower storeys, support the grouped beams. The walls are built by strong beech and oak planks forming a voladizo ( a flying roof) in some houses (Donamaría). The four water roof, shape rarely used in this part of the Basque country. A very beautiful sample is the towered-house in Donamaría" 

  ("Architecture of the Basque village" A. Baeschlin) 

Given the high historical and artistic value of the piece to intervene, the restoration we have planned is absolutely respectful, seeking to maintain or to recover, in its case, the original state of the way of building. It is evident, for any visitor that the towered house doesn't only owe, its value to its peculiar external aspect but rather its importance is based  also on  the mysterious space of its interior, such  space that so well reflects  all and each one of the characteristics of the Basque popular culture related to the house. For this reason, this project doesn't only seek to guarantee the conservation of some formal typological elements but besides it  attempts, especially, the subsistence of all the capacity of suggestion of a spacial world born to absolutely take its roots on this land and this society 

DEMOLITIONS AND CLEANINGS. 

In order to recover the vocational, space and structural aspect of the house, the intervention foresees to  demolish of all those building elements that alter or get their physiognomy dirty. So that , the wooden partition that separates the kitchen from the entrance disappears in the first storey , in order to integrate the fireplace in the access space. They withdraw all the compartment items to recover the unity of these atmospheres in the second and third storeys. 

The demolition of the shed, placed outside,  built in nowadays way that shelters a room  and a toilet in order to recover the traditional image of the tower. 

In the lower storey we foresee cleaning and disinfection works to evacuate the organic detritus stored during years and to clean up, with it, the building ground and the outburst of the stone walls. 

READJUSTMENT OF FOUNDATIONS. 

The process of laundry of the foundation and of partial disintegration of the base of the stone wall have been taken in the SE and SW facades and  the project by means of a consistent readjustment in the supplement of the current foundation with another of  concrete, fixed to the previous one, besides the friction  by bars of steel of high resistance. If in some moment, the top mark of the new foundation overcomes the level of the ground, the project foresees to cover it with soil and to sow with  grass again. 

STONE FACADE. 

We will clean the base of the stone wall to fulfil the previous task  by cleaning the joints and filling them again with liquid cement of high resistance that guarantees their long last

We foresee a similar process to seal the cracks of the SE, SW and NW facades. And we have also projected the repair of the rejoint of the base under the same standards.

Due to the conditions of the base reinstatement the quality and quality of the material will be like in form, dimension and disposition of the pieces, to those presented by the rest of the tower in good conservation state.  

 THE WOODEN STRUCTURES 

The work on the wooden structure is different for the first two storeys or for the two  last ones. In  the base levels, the project decides to supplement the wooden beams, of great section and much light with metallic reinforcements that will impede the appearance of arrows, and they will allow a bigger load of the upper storeys. This task will keep away the pillars and to appear “apeos”. 

In the upper storeys we main the approach, on the other hand, we get off the items that load and we substitute  the bad pieces

When we  lack in  many pieces of the original structure, especially the props of the central and perimetral pillars of the second and third storeys and some secondary girders of the third storey, this work includes their reinstatement  to recover the initial aspect of the structure and also to guarantee its correct work and operation. 

WOODEN FACADE. 

The project is awared  that this element defines the more the building.  It is extremely careful in the reinstatement of the wooden scaffold that is carried out with oak board, properly protected, of 3 cm. of thickness and 25 2 cms. of width. The height of the pieces is determined by the place of the perimeter structure and its  restoration follows the same approaches that the wooden structure of these storeys that serves it as support. With this approach, the layers diminish progressively in height, at the time that some lay on other to guarantee a good evacuation of water. The sideway folds are designed as half wood. 

The windows open up small, in a conopial way those recovered and rectangular the other ones, clipped in the fine wooden layer. 

COVER. 

Most of the solivos and the diagonals supports are not in good condition and the project foresees  the total substitution of the cover. The new cover, identical in shape  and slope to the previous one  solves with a similar structure  the old one, in oak wood, on which supports a sandwich that contains inside a thermal isolation material. The lower end of this sandwich will consist on wooden oak planks that will show the current aspect of the entrecubierta quite faithfully. The upper end will be of Arabic tiles and of the recovery.